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Medieval Europe Survives in Transylvania

by Morgan Burke, posted on Jan 22, 2005

The darkness of the Transylvanian night is almost complete,
except for the rich starscape that can be picked out through
cracks in the clouds. Shepherds' dogs are baying, far off in the
mountains, and the faces around me are barely visible in the glow
of gas lamps. There is no electricity at this mountain cabana, a
collection of tiny huts for travellers.

``Just like in the days of Ceaucescu," says Gaby, getting a
chuckle from the proprietor. Gaby is twenty-two, a policeman
from the Black Sea city of Constansa. For his vacation, he
and his wife Monica are driving through Transylvania. On a
salary of $100 per month, they don't have many other choices.

Romania is a poor country, but not desperate. The land is lush
and beautiful, and the brown-skinned peasants carting hay in
their horse-drawn carts are muscular and well-fed. I stop in
street markets to buy my lunches, and gorge to the point of
illness on watermelons and the most wonderful breads, for less
than 50 cents a bellyfull.

It's easy to lose your sense of value in Romania. Having spent
the previous two months in Western Europe, where so much as
gazing wistfully through a baker's window can cause your wallet
to spontaneously combust, I now found myself eating daily in fine
restaurants, where a 3-course dinner with half a litre of beer
adds up to $3.50. Gaby asks me as tactfully as he can with his
poor English if I agree that the restaurants are overpriced. I
try to explain that back home I could barely purchase the beer in a
restaurant for that amount.

This initiates a discussion of prices. They want to know how
much I paid for the Suzuki motorcycle that has managed to
transport me here from Amsterdam. The ten-year old heap is
leaking oil, the chain is stretched to the breaking point, the
tires are bald, and the lights stopped working back in Germany.
Still, it gets more attention than a Ferrari in these parts. The
proprietor's young son is agog with the novelty of it.
``'Cicletta!" he keeps saying (as in bicicletta---bicycle), and I
keep misunderstanding his two-year-old mind's intent.
``Chocolata?" I ask, miming the eating of bonbons, and the boy
laughs and makes motor noises and bounces on his seat.
``'Cicletta! 'Cicletta!"

Four and a half million Romanian lei is what the Suzuki cost, and
everyone sits back, stunned by the figure. It's a third of what
it would cost to bring electricity to this cabana, and that's an
impossibly large sum. I try to point out the flaws of the
machine, eager to prove that I'm no Aristotle Onassis, but
perhaps I unintentionally awe them even more. Imagine the price
of a new Suzuki...

The roads here are full of rattling, smoking East German
Trabants, and comparatively luxurious Romanian Dacias. Although
few can muster enough firing cylinders to pass the transport
trucks on mountain ascents, the drivers will leave no rule of the
road unbroken in their efforts to pass in the flats.

Almost as common as the cars are the horse and donkey-drawn
carts, full of farmworkers, gypsies, and swaddled children. The
motorized traffic races around them, and then brakes for the
strolling bulls and nervous flocks of sheep around the next bend
in the road.

Such unspoiled scenes abound amongst the haystacks, chimney-top
storks' nests, and silver church domes of rural Transylvania.
Commercialism is still largely unknown to the Romanians. Yes,
you can buy Coca Cola, but it is still served in slim glass
bottles, and the billboards and neon hype of Budapest in
neighbouring Hungary are mercifully absent.

Even what is one of the bigger tourist attractions in
Transylvania---the castle of Count Vlad Tepes (ostensibly the
inspiration for Dracula) in Bran---is remarkably low-key, with a
small crafts market and some pensions scattered around. I turned
up just as a thunderstorm descended on the village and shook the
surrounding hills for an hour. In spite of its reputation and
the monster-movie atmosphere, Vlad's little fortress with its
whitewashed walls and red-tile roofs looked rather homey and
inviting.

Warmth and charm defy a reputation of crime and corruption
throughout Romania. I brought no small amount of trepidation
with me, including a sackload of rumours about gas queues, gypsy
thieves, and bent cops, none of which materialized. The gas
stations were clean and efficient, staffed by skirted gas
jockettes with fistsful of lei who pump the cheapest fuel in
Europe. The gypsies I came across were characterized by the
horse-drawn caravans on the roads, and by Mariana, a young beggar
girl in the stunningly authentic medieval town of Sighisoara.
Although I only gave her 100 lei (seven cents), she took my
picture, and was happy to let me take hers, after which she shyly
requested a copy. Unfortunately, the address she gave me (``74")
was somewhat unspecific, but I lacked the Romanian to communicate
this sad fact.

The police were nothing less than helpful, guiding me to
inexpensive hotels in their unmarked Dacias full of assault
rifles when I was lost, and never complaining about my less-than-
fully-functional motorcycle. Gaby insists that there is little
incentive for police to indulge in corruption. ``I have a good
job," he explains, shrugging as if that is all one can ask for in
the modern Romania. ``Why should I risk that?" There are some
surprising perks for him, too. In the days of Ceaucescu, he
explains, policemen could face severe punishment for firing their
guns inappropriately. ``Now," he jokes, ``you make trouble---pow!"

He cautions me to steer clear of the black market money changers,
who seem to mill about in the streets of every Eastern European
city. In Romania they brazenly defy the law and mob you as you
squirm your way into the exchange bureaus, flashing their
calculators, sometimes offering a few percent higher than the
official rate, sometimes misplacing a decimal point to their own
benefit. It never seems to be worth the hassle or risk.

Besides, many western currencies will be accepted in leiu of
Romanian cash, and prices are typically given in your choice of
(US) dollars, marks, or lei. These prices don't always agree.
In my first night in Romania, I was offered a four-room suite
with Persian rugs and luxurious wooden furnishings for DM20, but
it was only the equivalent of DM15 if I paid in Romanian
currency. (Stupidly I passed, reasoning that I should be able to
find a single room for much less still. Sundown forced me into a
much less stylish hotel, for more money.)

But that was all several nights ago. Tonight my hut, nestled in
the Carpathian mountains southeast of Brasov, is setting me back
the princely sum of $4.50. There may be no electricity, but
there are also no diesel fumes, nor the endless faceless
apartment blocks of communist-era urbanity.

The proprietor of the cabana offers me a cupful of sugared wild
berries that he picked earlier in the day. For making wine, he
mimes. Gaby and Monica jump up and fetch a watermelon from their
hut, and we noisily slurp up the sweet fruits and drink Cuicas
beer until the deep Transylvanian mists chase us into our beds.